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22nd May 2016

Newslink Interview-"New" Sequel spreads its wings
Interview

Insurance Newslink recently met up with Ian Summers, Business Development director at Sequel Business Solutions, the growing insurance and reinsurance systems specialists.
Sequel has made an increasing impact on the London Market across all players since its beginnings over 20 years ago, with leading underwriters and the medium/larger brokers, and MGAs as clients, mainly through its Eclipse Underwriting and Eclipse Broking offerings.
2014 proved to be a pivotal year for the company when it was acquired by HgCapital in partnership with the management team who retained a significant interest. A few months later, Summers, previously cio of Aon and a major contributor to the London Market modernisation programmes, joined Sequel.
Summers outlined the direction of the “new” Sequel, moving from mainly consultancy and bespoke to products to meet market and client needs, but with the same level of technical excellence. The move to an impressive new City office and to a product emphasis and professional marketing has been successful. A further 20 clients have been signed up in the last 18 months and now total over 50 whilst staff numbers, across IT and market knowledge attributes, have increased from 130 to 150 in the same timeframe. Summers says the emphasis is on “solving today’s problems” but staying ahead of client’s demands and requirements-designed so that clients can do it themselves.”
Sequel intends to continue to focus on Specialty business and to increasingly extend its global reach-a partnership with multi-national consulting firm everis provides support in Spanish-speaking countries. Other areas on the radar for development include the US, Bermuda, Switzerland, and Singapore. They have clients on mainland Europe, and large Bermuda-based start-up Fidelis signed up for Underwriting, Claims, and Impact Risk Exposure solutions.
Sequel’s European Award-winning Impact Risk Exposure solution has proved very successful with over 20 clients in a short period of time. Its latest offering, Sequel Claims, has already been selected by six clients, and earlier this month won the “Technology Initiative of the Year” award at the Insurance Times Claims Excellence Awards. Sequel were also involved in the development of the London Market ECF2 Write-Back facility, and produced a detailed checklist for its client base. They have also provided clients with assistance over Solvency II implementation.
Sequel’s Innovation Forum last year enabled the company and its clients to keep close to current and future requirements, following on from the London Market Group(LMG) London Matters influential report, in which Summers played a part. He is continuing his involvement in the London Market modernisation programme, and also the global Ruschlikon ACORD standard development initiative as Technical co-chairman.
In January, Sequel won two high-profile categories in the ACQ5 Global Awards-Growth Company of the Year, and its ceo Mario Garcia was selected as the insurance and reinsurance software industry’s Gamechanger of the Year.
Certainly a company on the move.